ARC II: THE SURFACE
Harry decided that, yes, his class was one of the worst places you could be during a rainstorm. The doors slammed open, the air got dense, and the windows got very foggy. Perks of being so high up.
As the thunder clapped in the distance, the students sat quietly on the floor, their wands clenched in their hands in fear. Harry knew they were scared, but they were trying so hard not to show it.
With a flicker of his own wand, the curtains draped over the windows, and the sound of rain stopped. A very powerful silencing charm fell over the room.
"Okay, where were we?"
"We were where we were," the class chanted in chorus, a bit too eagerly.
It was a silly phrase. Something he'd come up with on a sleep-deprived night just to get them to loosen up after a Boggart incident left three of them crying into their sleeves. Now, they treated it like gospel. He didn't mind-it worked.
By the time the bell chimed, the storm was still raging outside, but the students were already slinging bags over shoulders and shaking out their nerves.
"Don't forget to revise shielding charms!" Harry called after them. "And for Merlin's sake, do not test them on each other in the corridors again!"
A few muffled apologies and guilty giggles echoed as the last of them filtered out. Silence fell over the room, broken only by the occasional snap of thunder and the low groan of wind against the windows.
Harry exhaled slowly, rubbing the back of his neck as he moved to stack the scrolls from the front desk. He levitated the desks back into rows with a twitch of his wand, the wood scraping softly across the stone floor.
Just as he was about to leave for the staffroom, a low knock echoed against the classroom door.
"Come in." He called out, leaning against his desk in anticipation.
In walked Andrea Labesque, the Herbology teacher, "McGonagall needs us in her office."
Harry rose and eyebrow, "Just us or everyone?"
She merely shrugged, "I was only asked to call you on my way there."
Then she walked out of the classroom, not looking back to see if he would follow her. Harry sighed and pockets his wand before he left as well.
The walk was uneventful. A few students stopped to greet him, and a couple of portraits turned to mutter polite observations like "That storm's not letting up anytime soon" or "Another inspection, perhaps?" One particularly loud painting of a duelling baron shouted something about improper corridor form, but Harry ignored it.
There was no reason to suspect anything was wrong. Just another meeting. Some policy, some shift in class protocol, maybe something about the new gobstones club clogging up the lower hall.
That was until he opened the office door.
Then he realised something had to be terribly wrong.
At the far end of the room, beside Headmistress McGonagall's desk, stood a well-dressed man. His hair was in a bun at the nape of his neck, not a strand out of place. The charcoal-gray robes trimmed in deep green looked sharp and precise, just like the man himself. He stood with one hand folded over the other, not leaning, not slouching-present.
Draco Malfoy.
Magical Compliance Officer.
His chest burst with warmth. A warmth, he wished would go away. Something he had been avoiding for years finally came back to haunt him. And Harry be damned if he let this affect him.
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Redemption | Drarry (Old version. Incomplete)
FanfictionSixth year at Hogwarts was supposed to be just another step toward the future, but for Harry Potter, it became something else entirely. A sudden shift in his magic, an unshakable instinct gnawing at the edges of his mind, and a pull toward something...
